Ruben Medina

More than a country: more than a cinema

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Undoubtly Brazil has the most unbreakable topics all over the world. At least it deserves it. It is one of the richest countries, with the best football players and the most beautiful "mulatas" on the Planet. If it weren’t enough they can offer the most spectacular carnival that can be "seen by human eyes" and it is the fifth largest country in the world with 8.511.996 km2 and 150 million inhabitants. Almost all its territory is arable as well as abound with mineral resources. Brazil’s Amazon Jungle has the largest biological reserves on the Earth. One can find this slogan in any touristic brochure: BRAZIL: MORE THAN A COUNTRY Apart from this the Brazilian culture is very powerful not only in music and literature but also in cinema. The Brazilian cinema has not been considered according to its values in the very recent years. But the Brazilian soap operas have invaded all the continents and one of my greatest friends said: "These films are the opposite of the soap operas." This is a very important reason to be grateful for having the possibility of "peeping into" the alive Brazilian film art. During the 60s and 70s the Brazilian cinema had periods of glory and splendour, mainly in the context of European Film Festivals and also in the USA. This phenomenon was linked to the growth of the liberal left. It was the defended by the Western Left and its ideologists from May’68. Cinema Novo never found true popular space. Maybe it was not their intention, but C. N. was born with an elitist purpose. It had happened to all the artistic avant-garde tendencies during the XXth Century. Cinema Novo cannot be analysed like an isolated phenomenon even it is a strictly Brazilian product, it is a part of a wider movement that someone called "NUEVO CINE LATINO AMERICANO" ("New Latin American Cinema") These filmmakers decided to tear with the traditional solutions of making film and instead of shooting in the studios, they worked in the streets not with professionals but the ordinary people. They used the voice of social commitment, every device such as simple and authentic story, spontaneity, brutal description of misery and poverty. Cinema Novo’s method is to build on contrasts especially social ones in their first films. Some of the most important C. N. filmmakers are Glauber Rocha, Carlos Diegues, Ruy Guerra. If it not difficult to discover the powerful influence of Italian Neorealism neither in Pereira’s nor in his followers, like Rocha and the others: social commitment, left-wing emotions, realistic descriptions, tightening the frames of the studios, "plen air" sceneries all bear witness to it. There is a significant difference in Cinema Novo with its unconcealed romanticism, pathos, unsetting, mysticism This Brazilian Filmweek wanted to show us these tendencies and much more. We also could see proposition to some conventional films such as O quatrilho (Game in four) which was the opening work of the Filmweek. The independent voice of Brazilian filmart crystallised soon and also was appreciated by the international audience. If is proved by the Awards given to the directors of the Cinema Novo. Anselmo Duarte received the Golden Palm in Cannes for O pagador de promessas, 1962. Glauber Rocha got the Best Film Award in Karlovy Vary for Barravento just a few years later, and The Award of Crities in Cannes for Tierra em Transe ("Field in transcend") and Walter Lima was given the Golden Bear in Berlin for Brasil 2000. After this "BOOM" the Brazilian film art seemed to have been forgotten by critics and specialists. It got out of fashion to see films either from Brazil or the Third World. The contemporary Brazilian film art has nothing to be ashamed. The leading figure of Cinema Novo, Nelson Pereira dos Santos is fortunately still alive, healthy and in the middle of the Ring, like a good boxer. Chattering by the side of the Danube Fewer than seventy-two hours were spent by Nelson Pereira dos Santos in Budapest. On Saturday, 28th, he left for Marseille with the intention of participating also in a Brazilian film week, in the biggest Mediterranean Harbour. Afterwards he is going to travel to Tel-Aviv for taking part in a congress of filmmakers. Although he doesn’t mourn about it, the only thing he is craving to do is making a new film of any case. His last work is from 1995. This year Nelson will complete his 70th birthday and everything announces it will be a great celebration. Actually he has been preparing for two projects which are almost ready to be started: one of them is Casa grande e sensala (The big house and the cabin) television series containing thirteen chapters, each of them at a length of an hour based on a work by Gilberto Freire. As usual in this type of work, there are some filmmakers and script writers working together, and they will be led by Nelson as a General Director. Casa grande e sensala tells a story about the birth of Brazilian nation through the XVIth, XVIIth, XVIIIth centuries. All the plot is determined by sex and food. Everything is ready to begin shooting with locations in Africa, Portugal and Spain as well. His second project is a feature film titled Guerra y libertad (War and freedom). Its theme is about fighting against slavery. The basis of the story is the XIXth century young Brazilian poet, Castro Alves’s life. He is involved in a scandalous love affair with a famous Portuguese actress, who is older than him. This film will be made in cooproduction with Portugal, and the female protagonist will be the Portuguese "diva", María de Medeiros. " cinema is already finished, at least the cinema we had seen and made." Marco Ferreri (1928-1996), Italian filmmaker I am trying to provoke Nelson with this Ferreri’s phrase. I still do not know but I am sure they appreciated each other. The Brazilian filmmaker admitted that my suspicions were in a right way and "even more" he shares the "pessimist" criteria: "cinema e finito". Their coincident point of view is clear when we enjoy the films they both dedicated to the cinema’s 100th Annivesary. Nostalgic Vindications are obvious like a component of their generation’s ideology, but it is much more than that. Both of them in the deep of their souls are utopists (and anarchist, why not?) N. P.: "The last film I have made is Cinema of tears dedicated to the Latin American Cinema of the period between 1930 and 1940. It was not my original intention, but unfortunately it became an homage to a great friend, Cosme Alves Netto*, who left us last year. In the film he plays himself. The British Film Institute requested me to make a film for the centenary and many of my counterparts expected me to do something about the Cinema Novo. The majority of the filmmakers followed the way of documentaries, but I prefer fiction. The film is about a fellow at my age who lives obsessed by nightmares. His mother committed suicide after watching a certain film when he was only three. The shadow of his mother always haunts him in his dreams and when he asks: "Mama why don’t you take me to the cinema?" He never has answer. It pushes him into a deep crisis and decides to turn to Cosme to endeavour to discover the possible motivations of his mother’s suicide. Cosme: "The film your mother and aunts saw every day were the Mexican and Argentinean melodramas of the 30s." *Cosme Alves Netto, cineaste, for many years director of the Rio’s Cinematheque. The protagonist decides to go to Mexico to see these films. I worked with Silvia Oroz, who wrote a very remarkable essay with the title of Cine de lágrimas (Cinema of tears) dedicated to melodramas of the Latin American Cinema. Many people were furious as I did not make a film about Cinema Novo. BUT NOT CINEMA NOVO is a strictly Brazilian phenomenon. The Argentinean and Mexican melodramas were Latin American phenomenons. They were known for the widest audience: for the people The Cinema Novo "arrived" at only a little part of the audience. The Cinema Novo was a ghetto. I made a film trying to demonstrate it. Every day when you wanted to see a film there was a conference: once they talked about the cinema of the Mexican Revolution and there is a film by Paul Leduc, who I admire indeed. The next time is about the Cuban Cinema and Revolution. Afterward come Solana, Glauber, but always in a limited space or cinematheques. The other day I was asked why the Brazilian cinema, the Latin American cinema is not well accepted by the European audience. BECAUSE THERE IS NO MORE CHE GUEVARA. In the 60s the youth were very generous. They were interested in the future of the Third World and were impressed by the Cuban Revolution and above all the charismatic figure of Che Guevara. All the Brazilian and Latin-American films were shown during 1964, 1965, they automatically were identified with these phenomenons. It happened not only in Europe but in USA as well. I am Doctor Honoris Causa by Nanterre University. I received this title in 1993, because the Cinema Novo was a "cultural diet" for the students of this Institution. There were many posters of Che Guevara, Vidas secas, Dios y el diablo, Os fuzis*. Unfortunately the pronationalist speech even in France dangerously is becoming racist. And every time is more attractive for the young like it happened before with the fascist speech. *Very important films of C. N. Movement In Brazil we also can feel this craziness in the extreme right. We are suffering from the process of globalization, "mundialization" as the French call it, and they want to reduce more and more the role of the state and pretend that everything would be controlled by the private section. This is against the five centuries history of Brazil. Because when we were a Portuguese colony even individual liberty depended on the state. I am not in favour of Stalinism neither Inquisition. Inquisition is guilty for many of the traumas that we have had in Brazil and Latin America. I talk about the traditions of my country where the state was the absolute owner of everything and now the state does not decide about anything, neither in the field of education, nor health. It is a brutal transformation. In Brazil the radical division of the intelligentsia between "right" and "left" has caused an enormous damage. The country could have grown much more. An engineer, very talented but leftist has less chance Our country does not take advantage of the intellectual power we have created. It is a loss. In cinema however we have got better in the amount of production. I will try to explain myself. Ruy Guerra for instance is actually shooting a new film in Cuba. He has been benefited for the new laws, we could call them laws of tax incentive. If one project is accepted by the Ministry of Culture, you have the right to apply for sponsors in that sort of "Wall Street": Films’s debentures are sold there. Thanks to this mechanism the production has grown in the recent years. In 1997, for instance, there was forty features and this year no fewer than sixty will be finished. I am, of course, talking about films made for cinema. But the problem is still the same: the production is going out of the crisis, but we have not solved the problems of distribution and exhibition. These two essential connecting links of the chain are dominated by the American big companies. The old system of protection quota was eliminated. In one way or another this system helped the national cinema because it meant we had a minimum space for our works. It was not enough, of course the national production still keeps a "fee", but it does not mean anything. Until 1990 our quota was 180 days, but now the figure is 49. There are like in many other countries the television’s options: satellite, cable channels it means something, but the companies don’t want to pay reasonable prizes. In the last years they have bought some of our films but the prizes are really very low. At the same time, some of these channels have started to invest in cooproductions, something normal in Europe. I think we both – artists and business men – can take advantage of this possibility. There is also another chance: the instructive channels. They are very interested in Brazilian documentaries and historical films in the style of "The big house and the cabin", the series I am going to direct. If we can say that the documentary for the big screen is dead, it is true that television offers many attractive options for this kind of films. Actually many of the Brazilian films are aesthetically conventional and it is a pity, because behind this "conventionalism" we can find the terrible word "MARKET". Its track is on everything. Artistic Experiments are only for a few ones because the people have started to work with the spirit of the Producers and many forget they are – or may be never were – authors, creators. But fortunately there are others that follow in the fighting to carry on their original projects. And sometimes they win. The best example we have recently had is the film Central do Brazil (Brazil’s railway station), directed by Walter Sales Jr. This film won the Golden Bear in Berlin and saved the honour of our country. I want to stay that Central do Brazil means the true rebirth of the Brazilian Cinema, not only aesthetically but because of its content and ethics too. I do not know yet how the audience will receive this film in our country. It will be shown there in a couple of weeks. As it is known, another Brazilian film was nominated this year to the Oscar for the Best Foreign Motion Picture O que isso compahiero? (What do you say, Fellow?). The actors play their roles very professionally, the script is good, but it is a film made from an American point of view for American public. That is the main objective: try to conquer America in the way that Hollywood conceive the American audience. Absolutely different from Central do Brazil! What do you say ? Provoked great discussion in our country. People who were involved in the guerillas during the sixties and the seventies have reacted furiously. I am not against this work. Undoubtedly it is a very professional work but is conventional American very different from Sales’s film. Central do Brazil is a very beautiful film. The director has declared that he is trying to follow the way of the Cinema Novo. It is a very strong film. The kind of those capable to touch your deepest feelings. It is the Brazil’s true: A woman writes letters for the illiterate people. She does her "work" in the railway station that connects Río with its suburbs. There she meets a young man, the miseries of ordinary people In a certain way is the opposite of Vidas secas (Dry Lifes). (People who leaves the city and go to north east to get in contact with misery.) Central do Brazil has no connections with the kind of commercial films where everybody is pretty, well combed, dressed, and maked-up Epilogue About Hungary, I would like to say a few words. When I was young, I was a member of the Communist Party It happened in the fifties. In 1952 I left Sao Paulo where I was born, and discovered Río. Then Río was a marvellous city. I made "Río 40 graus" in 1955 It was a great experience. Next year I was invited to Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Czechoslovakia, and coming back home I spent 1 or 2 months – I don’t remember – in Paris. I lived in the same hotel with Jorge Amado and Nicolás Guillén. Imagine! I was only 28. Unfortunately that year in October, the Russian Army invaded Hungary This invasion provoked big quarrels inside the Brazilian Communist Party. I was against it It was a friendly separation. They never invited me to a meeting after that. I did not ask why But for the Militaries and political police my "red stigma" never died.

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